Republicans accused the Democrats of pursuing the investigation simply to dig up dirt on Rove and waste hundreds of thousands of dollars of money that the RNC could be using to shore up its candidates’ campaigns.

“Are we simply going on a fishing expedition at $40,000 to $50,000 a month?” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) asked National Archives and White House officials at the hearing. “Do any of you know of a single document, because this committee doesn’t, that should’ve been in the archives but in fact was done at the RNC?”